Attitudes about refugees and immigrants arriving in the United States: a conjoint experiment

Introducing an international relations perspective into the literature on anti-immigrant attitudes, we hypothesize that immigrants from rival countries will be shunned and immigrants from allied countries preferred, especially by respondents who identify more strongly with the nation. We fielded a forced-choice conjoint experiment in 22 countries, whereby respondents chose between applicants for permanent resident status with randomized attributes. We identified rival and allied countries of origin for each surveyed country, with one such pair sharing a similar racial and cultural make-up as the majority of respondents, and one pair being more dissimilar. We find that discrimination against immigrants from rival states is so pronounced that it results in a net preference for racially and culturally dissimilar immigrants. Since we fielded the surveys amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are able to leverage exogenous changes in the intensity of one rivalry, providing further evidence for the proposed mechanism.

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American Attitudes Toward Climate Migrants: Findings from a Conjoint Experiment

Adman,

Lajevardi,

Seligsohn

2024

APSC

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The dramatic impacts of climate change presage an inevitable surge in mass migration; however, advanced democracies are ill-equipped for this impending crisis. Moreover, we know very little about how publics evaluate this group of prospective migrants, who are estimated to increase from 100 million to 200 million worldwide within decades. This study investigates American attitudes toward climate-related migrants in a conjoint experiment of more than 1,000 US adults, in which respondents evaluated fictional refugee profiles that varied across multiple attributes. Findings reveal that Americans (1) prefer political refugees over climate-related refugees; and (2) prefer climate-related and economic migrants to a similar extent, and that these preferences are not driven by concerns over climate-related refugees’ integration into American society. Subgroup analyses indicate that younger individuals, those with high climate-change anxiety, and those who previously engaged in climate-related political activities discriminated less against climate-related migrants. Analyses of open-ended responses reveal that climate anxiety is a driver of positive evaluations of climate-related migrants.

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Attitudes about refugees and immigrants arriving in the United States: a conjoint experiment

Cited by 5 publications

References 43 publications

Vacillating between “strange” and “familiar” - representations of children in migrant families and their health in Swedish school health services

Vacillating between “strange” and “familiar” - representations of children in migrant families and their health in Swedish school health services

Geo-Political Rivalry and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment: A Conjoint Experiment in 22 Countries

American Attitudes Toward Climate Migrants: Findings from a Conjoint Experiment

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